


Feels Fake

by creepygeekyqueer



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandonment, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety Attacks, Black Paladin Keith (Voltron), Established Relationship, Home, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV First Person, Red Paladin Lance (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 06:50:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14847834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creepygeekyqueer/pseuds/creepygeekyqueer
Summary: I feel like how Lance has described the ocean to me.  He said you can feel the sand worry out from under your feet as the water draws it back, he said it’s easy to lose your balance, it’s easy to fall, and you don’t always expect how strong the pull is and how fast the sand leaves.I feel like it’s easy to fall.





	Feels Fake

Our first time back on Earth is strange.  All the things we’ve been talking about the entire time we’ve been in space isn’t even close to our tongues.  

We all just stare.  

Pidge’s hands are splayed across the window, the electronic they had been poking at abandoned on the floor.  Hunk is leaned forward, on his tiptoes, mouth open and almost smiling, but not quite. Coran is silent, standing behind everyone with his hands clasped behind his back as his eyes flit from the planet looming closer, to each of us, and finally to Allura, whose eyes are glossy from the sudden silence pressing in.

My hands twitch, heart pounding in my ears as I hold my breath, pulling my eyes away from that swirling mass of white, blue, brown, and green.  A sudden tightness and longing closes around my chest and it’s suffocating. I force myself to exhale and the breath shakes as it leaves me, eyes stinging and chest tight, stomach in knots.

I step towards Lance like a magnet pulled into another one when the distance is suddenly too much and not enough all at once. I don’t feel his warmth, and that startles me out of whatever reverence holds me in place.

I blink back the threatening tears, push down the building anxiety, taking in everyone in the room with an astoundingly strong sense of loss.  No one notices me, just like none of us noticed Lance leave the room. I take the chance while I have it, turning away from Earth just moments a part from all of us.  The corridor takes each step with me once I make it through the doors, plays my movements back to me and makes it difficult to tell which way Lance went.

You don’t spend years in space with someone and not know where they go hide, though.  Every time that Lance has been upset, he goes to the Lions, Kaltenecker, where we plugged the game station in so long ago, or my room.

I check the Lions first, and find Red sitting exactly how Lance had left her after our last mission, the one that won us this break, and just barely manage to catch the noise that builds in my throat as I run to my own Lion.  The urgency I push out has Black on her feet before I even round the corner, but she’s there and Lance isn’t and it feels like my lungs are going to burst as I pass her by to check Blue.  She hasn’t let him in for months now, but she’s the one that would comfort him the most, she’s the one that would take him home, to oceans and beaches and his family and away from--

The breath pops past my lips in a rush, a mix of choking back sobs and laughter, a mix of abandonment and elation.  He could have easily taken her and been home by now. Blue doesn’t move, she just sits, poised and graceful, a princess despite her own not being present.

Every muscle in my body is quivering, tight and tense, I feel like I’m walking on stilts as I turn away from the Lions and go back into the main areas of the castle.  Kaltenecker is in her room, the stool and milk bucket set in their place by the barn instead of out and in use. 

I dig my nails into my palms to keep my hands from shaking.

The game room turns up the same results, no sign of Lance, the console is cold to the touch, to match the feeling that’s been gnawing away at the back of my mind since it was first proposed we come back to Earth after the last mission.

I grind my teeth together to keep from screaming.

The walk to my room feels like it takes an eternity.  Every echoed step sounds like it’s mocking me. I jog halfway down the hall but stop a few feet away from my door, that gnawing dread eating away at my insides.

What if he’s not there?  What if he’s in his own room after months spent staying in mine?  What if he stays there, what if he doesn’t want to stay with me, what if I’m not good enough for home, what if--

The door to my room slides open and I stop in my tracks.

Everything feels fake.

“Lance--”  his name catches and tumbles out, more accusing than I ever wanted it to sound, I never wanted to say it like that.  So small and alone and I spent so many years trying to push him away only to give up and let him in and wind up here, to say his name so close to Earth, so close to--

“Come home with me,” he says it urgently, like it’s an important secret only he can keep and the smile on his face is utterly blinding.  

And then he falters.  His smile falls into familiar worry lines as I let out a breath I don’t know how long I had been holding.  Only it’s not  _ just _ a breath, it’s tight and cracks and the space between us is suddenly gone as he grabs my face with warm, calloused hands that can wield a sword just as well as a gun and took down so many lives in order to get back here.

“Keith, what’s wrong?”

I can feel the words brush against my face as he traces his thumbs underneath my eyes, I can feel them stick there, cold.  I take a breath, and it’s harder to inhale than it should be.

I’m stuck on his statement, not his question.  The question is apparent. What isn’t wrong? It’s been wrong since we finished that last fight several galaxies ago, we just haven’t talked about it.

_ I _ just haven’t talked about it.

“What do you mean ‘come home with you’?”

The words are tight, forced to be even, trying not to shake, and he laughs, the worry lines vanishing in some places, though his eyes still show that he’s upset.

“Come home with me, Keith!  I want you to meet my parents, my family, I just.” He pauses, the corners of his mouth lift, “I really need to have you there with me.”

I feel like how Lance has described the ocean to me.  He said you can feel the sand worry out from under your feet as the water draws it back, he said it’s easy to lose your balance, it’s easy to fall, and you don’t always expect how strong the pull is and how fast the sand leaves.

I feel like it’s easy to fall.  

My hands curl around Lance’s wrists as I blink just so I can look away from his face, just so I don’t lose my balance.  “You’re not gonna leave--”

“Keith. . .   _ No _ .  I want this.  I want  _ you _ !” His hands find their way into my hair, I feel him press his lips against my forehead, against a closed eye, a cheek, “ _ You’re _ my home.”  

Those words he presses against my lips, just above a whisper, more of a secret than the one he shared before.  I kiss him back, lean into him like he contains everything and anything I will ever need. He does. My hands find the front of his shirt as he moves his arms around my shoulders, holding me to him as if doing so will make time hold still around us.

It feels like it could.

Lance is the one to break away.  He usually is. His hands find my shoulders and suddenly we’re an arms length apart and his eyes are bright with excitement.  “Let’s take Red and go on ahead. I already packed us some clothes.” 

The bag he grabs off the floor, that had been clearly forgotten about in his rush to make it five feet from our bedroom door to me, is stuffed. The seams are tight and threatening to bust and I can see the red of my jacket attempting to spill out of the mouth as Lance swings it onto his shoulder.  He’s already stepping past me, pulling my arm, talking about relatives I’ve only ever known in name, about the best place to go for burgers and how he hopes it rains while we’re there.

I still feel like I’m suffocating, but instead of cold and creeping, it’s hot and all-consuming, burning in the veins, and there is nowhere else in the universe that I would rather be.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been so long since I actually wrote anything, like, I'm talkin' years, not days or weeks or months, but MAN did I get sucked into this hard. And what better time to clean the cobwebs off my AO3 account than now? 
> 
> If you find any spiders lurking over here, please shoo them quickly away from my space and let me know what you think about this story in the process! Special thanks to my sister (bobtheacorn) for helping me edit and assisting me in finding some inspiration for this.


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